The Party
by Tryn
Summary: A lot of fics discuss how Rinoa and Squall felt when they first met during the SeeD ball... you know, love, all that. But what about Quistis?


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The party. That was hardly a proper term for the annual SeeD ball, was it? Parties brought to mind excessive drink, radical dress styles and loud music. Not fruit punch masquerading as wine served in delicately fluted glasses, prim navy blue with trimmings uniforms, and ballroom music, courtesy of a CD player artfully hidden away where people couldn't see it. The Balamb Orchestra had promised that it was taking baby steps towards its ultimate goal (becoming a world-famous band) by first learning how to play their instruments and what those little things that looked like odd shoes attached to skinny little legs meant. 

As long as it was better than last year's fiasco, where some pranksters had sneaked in old disco music and spiked the punch with LSD. Quistis still hadn't got over the eye-burning, mind-blowing sight of Cid actually breakdancing. She had heard that his back was still giving him problems. It was lucky she hadn't drank the punch, otherwise there would be millions of pictures of Quistis Trepe, beloved, worshipped instructor, high on LSD circulating on the Balamb Garden Network. 

"Hiiii Ms Trepe!" Selphie, irrepressibly cheerful to the point of strangulation, bounced up. Quistis couldn't imagine how she had possibly passed the SeeD test. She believed in the fundamental good nature of people, and was sure that under all the in your face, airhead ditziness that was Selphie Tilmitt, there was a good, confident fighter. Quistis just needed to find it, that was all. 

"Would you like to join the Balamb Garden Festival? I know you're an instructor and all, but it would be _really, really meaningful_," Selphie gave Quistis a bright smile, "_towards your students _if you could join it. It would make a _good example_." 

Selphie knew the magic words. Quistis felt like she was backed into a corner. As an instructor, she had to make a good example, right? 

(In some ways, Selphie was ruthlessly intelligent.)

Quistis faltered. "Uh… I would really like to…"

Selphie's grin never wavered. 

"Uh… okay…"

Selphie beamed at her. "Thank you thank you Ms Trepe!" she flounced off, eager to harass and brainwash another victim into joining her cause. 

Quistis sighed. Another organization she had joined, another battle of will lost. When students needed the approval of a teacher for some cause, they came to Quistis Trepe, the doormat of the universe. 

She leaned against the wall and looked through the giant glass dome of the ballroom. The stars were out tonight. 

Her eyes traveled down to Selphie, who was bouncing over to her next victim. Was it possible for a girl to actually bounce while walking? 

And her next victim was… she squinted at the figure at the wall. Dammit, when would these contact lenses ever break in? Her vision cleared and focused, and she recognized the face with tousled brown hair and a sharp, aquiline face. 

Oh god. Squall. Her heart began to beat like it was running a marathon. Selphie spoke to him, still wearing that annoying grin asked him the same question she had posed to Quistis. 

Her smile faded a little as Squall's expression changed to almost derision, and then faded completely as he gave her his answer. No. 

Selphie stuck out her tongue at him, and walked off, the hop and skip in her stride gone. 

Squall, seemingly allowing himself one minute to express his emotions, rolled his eyes. 

Quistis giggled, and then hastily shoved it back down her throat as several guests gave her a puzzled look. Geez, what was she, a stalker? 

She remembered the first day of class, when she had met Squall Leonhart.

_"And I'm a new instructor, so please, be gentle with me, okay?" Quistis Trepe said. Several boys who had gained access to first-row desks gave a sigh of wistfulness and cast looks of adoration. Quistis distinctively heard one of them whisper, "Anything for you." _

She remembered what Xu, her best friend, had said. "A lot of people have a crush on you. Silly, really, since some of them are older than you. By becoming the youngest instructor since… god knows when, you're representing a goal that hundreds of students want to achieve. Please, Quistis, don't screw it up."

Screw it up how? She had asked, but received no answer. 

She noticed there were two empty seats at the back of the room. No doubt some students were late.   
"Okay class, today we'll learn about GF junctioning. As you all know, there are some negative side effects to this—"

The doors to the classroom slid open. Two teenage boys, both around her age, slouched into their desks, but not before shooting each other looks of unfathomable rage and hatred. 

For some reason, both of them seemed oddly familiar. Quistis couldn't imagine where she had seen them before. Both were dressed in attire that made them look much older. One of them had cropped blonde hair, and seemed to have a permanent sneer screwed onto his face. The other—even then, her heart had skipped several beats—had messy brown hair, with piercing, cold gray eyes. And that face…! It could break several hearts and start several wars. 

Okaaaaay… Quistis tried to compose herself. Students having crushes on teachers were perfectly normal, but teachers having crushes on students was just plain weird. 

"And what are your names?" Quistis attempted to say this in a perfectly normal voice, but it just sounded strained and forced.

"Seifer Almasy," the blonde one volunteered, sizing her up with his eyes.

"Squall Leonhart," the one she wanted to… no! Quistis, don't think about that right now. The brown-haired boy answered nonchalantly, and ran a hand through his shimmering hair. 

"And where were you two?" Quistis asked. 

"I was teaching him_ a lesson," Seifer said, somehow managing to express years of enmity between Squall in one word. "Unfortunately, Squally here failed."_

Squall didn't even bristle. Quistis suppressed in insane thought of cheering him on. Squall's face was cold and dispassionate. "We were sparring. Seifer cheated. I lost—"

"Of course." This was from Seifer. 

Squall's face betrayed some hatred, before his expression just slipped back naturally to his closed-off look.

"Where did this happen?" Quistis asked. 

"That rocky cliff over looking the ocean bay," Squall answered casually. 

Quistis felt brief anger, which turned into concern, mainly directed towards Squall. "Both of you could have been hurt! How long have you been sparring?"

"For six months."

"Yeah, and Squall almost pushed me off it once," Seifer said, eager to put in a bad word for Squall, before realizing that it could land both him and Squall in detention, and quickly rectified it. "It's no big deal. We just want to work off steam."

"I swear, some day both of you are going to get injured and sustain horrible scars, so don't say I never warned you!"

"Whatever," both of them said, shrugging in an eerie mirror-like gesture.

It was only now that she realized that her words had come true. It was amazing, the way Squall and Seifer were both alike. For one thing, they both had an air of untouchability around them, that you-can't-get-to-my-emotions look. Both of them were arrogant, although Seifer expressed it at any chance he got and Squall squirreled it away in his subconscious. But they had a good reason to be proud of themselves… they were both great warriors, the only people who wielded gunblades in the entire Garden. Doubtless both of them would go down in history. 

Even as she pondered about all of this, a black-haired girl clad in an amazingly sheer white dress walked over to Squall with a smile on her face. She exchanged several words with him, and Squall gave her a piece of his mind, but the girl still refused to be budged. She made an odd movement with her hand, like she was swinging a pendulum.

Oh please, oh please, reject her, Quistis prayed, so that she would have a slim, tiny, iota of a chance that she could ask Squall to dance. Squall looked away. Quistis' hopes soared, but then the girl dragged him off to the ballroom floor. Quistis' hopes crashed to a lonely death on the ground. 

As they did, they passed by Quistis. Quistis had half a mind to tell the girl off and wrap herself around Squall, but that was stupid. Squall didn't even know Quistis that well, except for that short exchange between them when Seifer had injured him, and he had only shut himself off to her. 

Squall, Squall, always a cold-hearted loner. 

Then, in the few seconds that Squall was dragged by, Quistis caught sight of his expression. He looked as though destiny and love had just bulldozed into him by way of a certain dark-haired, skimpily dressed girl.

With that, Quistis' dreams and desires just gave up the fight and died. 


End file.
